Opinions & Villainy: Why Can’t You Just Think of the Children?

Opinions & Villainy: Why Can’t You Just Think of the Children?

The latest in internet smut-blocking has come forth, courtesy of South Carolina State Representative Bill Chumley. Bill Chumley doesn’t like human trafficking, or kiddly diddlers, and he’s got a great plan to fix it.
All we need to do is have software and hardware manufacturers install filters to prevent people accessing smut online. If you, the consumer, want to access said smut, you need only prove that you are an adult and pay your $20.

Who said ransomware? Why – what devil in sheep’s clothing said ransomware? Have you no care for human trafficking, can’t you just… think of the children?

Now of course good old Mr. Chumley doesn’t know how these devices or software would work. The relevant industries will have to sort it out. But this isn’t an anti-business move – it’s pro-business! Mr.Chumley is happy to let companies add on their own charges to disable the not-ransomware. This will please consumers like You and Me because we enjoy paying more money for Things.

“Now, hold up, there. You can’t just go accusing people of being colossal fucking retards just because they’re looking to stop you from easily accessing the filth and smut that you gorge yourself on daily.”

But dear reader, I can. And I will. Forsooth, for such a plan to work, it would need to do a few things.

For starters, it would have to actually physically work. Days – mere scant hours – after such a device or software came out, there would be an exploit to circumvent it. The various cracking groups would be in a frenzy to smash what they would no doubt see as a draconian move with scant moralistic justifications. We’d have an arms race of security patches and cracking. Never mind the ill will this move will elicit from the general public, who only want to access their smut in peace.

And this speaks nothing to the usual bugs, oddities and peccadilloes that crop up with software (or hardware) solutions that are expected to work on everything from the newest gaming PC to a still-functional 486. And probably mobile devices as well. Sure. Why not.

To counteract the cost of implementing this, the government gets a cut of $20 when you pay to remove the ransomware. This goes towards initiates that actually solve things, but rather than hitting up the citizenry for more tax money (an unpopular move), the good representative wants to install ransomware onto your devices (also an unpopular move). The companies responsible for implementing said ransomware can tack on an additional charge, angering consumers even further. This is supposedly pro-business because it is a new revenue stream, however, an unsustainable revenue stream that makes money by angering consumers is a reasonable proposal to Mr. Chumley.

But perhaps all this could be justified if it would protect all the innocent children from pedophiles and sex-slave-traffickers. A noble goal!

One question springs to mind – how?

Pedophiles online, as far as I am aware (shoot me, I’m not an expert on how pedophiles run their affairs), arrange themselves into groups online that share files. There’s not always a central website that can be targeted, just servers accessed by people in the know. If average people pay to access adult content, how does this stop human trafficking? Apparently, most people who access child porn “almost always start by interfacing with softcore pornography”. I mean, sure, I believe that. But they also probably went to middle school. Maybe if we were to filter middle school and charge you $20 to attend class, there would be less child pornography.

The website also features the line “slippery slope of the heart” which is an expression so good that I expect to see it in a dimestore romance novel.
Other gleefully bizarre lines include “The United States cannot prosecute its’ way out of a sexual holocaust and porn pandemic,” and “freedom is the presence of the right restrictions”.

Sexual holocaust.

Good god, a sexual holocaust.

I do wonder at the gratuitous use of ‘holocaust’ to describe something that one doesn’t like. Might just be me.
And not to bash dimestore romance novels. They know what they’re about and aren’t trying to block you access to half the book because it “might enable rapists”.

We do have the “pornography is a public health hazard” and “easily accessible porn is impacting the demand for human trafficking” lines. Does consensual heterosexual sex in the missionary position impact the demand for rape? The fuck am I reading?

“It pushes them underground,” claims the website of prostitution and this proposed measures’ effect on prostitution. Bizarre – in most states, prostitution is already underground as it is illegal. “Our society does better when there are barriers in place,” is a claim made without proof of any kind. But Mothers Against Traffickers have attested under oath, “pornography online is an advertisement for prostitution”. Fascinating! I will also attest – under oath – that it isn’t. There you go, case closed. Glad we could get that sorted out.

The website is even better. One paragraph claims “The fact that Apple sells products with parental controls to minors is itself an omission of guilt under products liability and obscenity laws.” Bizarre, then, that they’ve not been taken to task over this. Perhaps Mr. Chumley doesn’t need due process to know guilt when he sees it. We get comparisons for devices with online capability to a 7-11 clerk checking your ID when you buy alcohol. “The act applies to any product that distributes the internet.” No more DVD disks with “The Internet” on it!

Chumley even goes on to assert that the ACLU is the primary author of the bill… because the ACLU said that filters were the least restrictive means to regulate content. Apparently this means that they are the best alternative.

Proposing bills is easy when you have strawman arguments.

I hear the People’s Party over in China has some great filters, like for results on Tiananmen Square. Maybe the good representative can ask them for help.